As cliché as it gets
by Ella Inspired
Summary: In which Stella works at a gift shop and Ray brushes up on his pick-up lines.You got to love Valentine's Day. Request by DC. Only rated for language.


**Lemonade Mouth**

**As cliché as it gets**

**By Ella Lavender**

_My V-day request story for my bud, DC, you rock you hard core potato! _

_I don't own Lemonade Mouth_

(^^)

Stella Yamada was bored.

Utterly, completely, wholeheartedly bored out of her mind. She was about ten seconds short of screaming like a deranged idiot off her crazy pills. And that was the good news! Blowing her hair out of her eyes, the half-Asian guitarist rested her folded arms atop the counter and placed her chin on top of it.

She thought this would be fun.

She thought this would be an interesting thing to do on the weekends.

She thought this would be worth wasting her afternoons to at least get some extra cash.

But oh how wrong she was.

Mentally she stabbed the little idiot in her head that laughed at her misfortune.

Damn it.

Why had she listened to her mother about getting a job? Why? She was sixteen for Pete's sake! What was wrong about just being a kid and hanging out? And it wasn't like her family was hurting for money either, so really this whole 'job' thing was a waste of time.

In bored depression, Stella watched a few people mill about, casually strolling aisle after aisle as if it were a lovely Paris park in spring instead of a cheesy gift store.

She sighed.

Instead of the fun and adventure she'd pictured when she entered the working world, Stella got nothing but singing post cards, smelly stuffed toys and fake plastic flowers. God she hated Valentine's Day.

If it weren't for her mother, she would be happily rocking on her guitar all afternoon.

If it weren't for her mother, she would be hanging out with her friends and band-mates at Dante's or chilling at the mall doing who knows what.

If it weren't for her mother, she would not be dying of boredom in a small store, surrounded by Valentine's Day commercialism.

Don't get her wrong, she had nothing against the whole 'Treat your loved one extra specially because it's a holiday and you do what the calendar tells you', but rather the…actually no, that was about it. Stella never understood the concept of V-day, the most uninteresting holiday on the face of the planet.

It wasn't Christmas, no presents, no snow, no fat guy in red and a beard. Not even a single reindeer.

Decorating the small store in red hearts and singing bears that smelled like they were dunked in a perfume version of a sewerage plant was probably the most torture since…hell, she couldn't even think of one worse than that!

If it weren't for the fact that her mother kicked her out the house on the weekends because of her 'Book club meetings' and 'home-work conferences on Skype', Stella would've bailed the minute she saw the requirements for the job:

A salesperson must be friendly, obliging and helpful at all times. And preferably female.

Well she had the female part down at least.

Stella sighed once more.

She wouldn't have minded being kicked out of her own house, but everyone else was too busy to entertain her.

Mo had to take extra classes on the weekends to improve her GPA (though why, remained a mystery considering how smart the Indian bassist was). Olivia, Lemonade Mouth's front-man, took up helping her Gram at various animal shelters around Mesa, with Wen accompanying of course. The only person that remained was Charlie, and unfortunately due to his rising popularity as the 'Drum God', spending any time with the curly haired drummer would lead to many hours running and hiding from his overzealous fangirls.

Stella hated P.E running would be avoided at all costs.

And sitting around doing nothing was always preferable. An upside was the pay.

It wasn't exceptional or anything, but it was enough to pay for her own random junk without making puppy eyes at her dad. The outcome of course saved a lot of time.

But she'd take it back if she weren't surrounded by all the lovesick losers who filled the store.

From her place behind the cashier, Stella watched a couple hogging up the card-aisle. The guy had his arms around the girl's waist, his chin rested on her shoulder as she read a bunny shaped card to him.

I'm sure the idiot can read, Stella thought with a roll of her eyes.

When the Valentine's season started two days ago, the revolutionary was determined to make the best of it. She set up decorations and seasonal cards with as much composure as possible and even sucked up to the boss to make up for the small box that 'accidently' caught on fire. Everything was going great. Right before the people started coming in.

In less than two hours, Stella witnessed everything from:

Horribly lovesick: "You don't happen to sell something as beautiful as my girlfriend do you?"

"I don't know, how ugly and cheap are we talking here?"

Freakily desperate: "You don't happen to have a box that can hold a heart, like, a human one maybe?"

"…please tell me you're joking…"

"What about something I can stick my hair onto?"

"I'm afraid to ask, but why would you need something like that for?"

"So they can have some of my hair, I mean, I have some of theirs so it's only fair right?"

"…you know what? Get out. No seriously. Go."

And even the annoying playboy, like the one coming over.

The guy had classically blonde hair, spiked into a Mohawk, his brown eyes barely seen from over a large handful of random goods he picked out. Reaching the cashier counter, he dumped his many articles of multiple items in front of her.

Running a hand through his hair, he gave her a boyish smile and gave her a flirtatious wink.

"Hey."

She raised a brow.

"Not that I mind," Stella began, as she rose from her folded arm position, "but why do you need so much stuff?"

He gave her a shrug and another smile. "I don't know."

Deciding to encourage this lapse in non-boredom, Stella reached over to run the items over the scanners. "Must be some lucky girl, getting spoiled like this and all."

The guy snorted. "Not really, I mean, they get one each so," he shrugged again.

"Oh, is this for some school function or something?"

"Nope, but you've got to keep them happy y'know?"

"Actually no, I don't," Stella replied dryly, periodically watching the amount of payment needed rise. "But either way, I hope you've got enough money to pay for all this."

"Of course I do, but you know," he leaned casually over the counter, looking her over with a leering eye. "I wouldn't mind paying you in another way."

No matter how disgusted Stella was at the prospect, she kept her face blank as she saw a familiar figure entering the store from the corner of her eye.

"Yo Yamada. "

"Oi Beech," she greeted back, hiding the relief she felt when the other guy leaned back to his original position. "What are you doing here?"

"It's a public place isn't it?" The blond soccer player asked sarcastically, rolling his ice blue eyes as he waved her off to walk towards a nearby display of gift cards. "Besides, I wasn't sure if I was hallucinating or it was some practical joke," he looked over his shoulder at her, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips, "Didn't know the Troublemaker from Long Island wore pink."

Stella glared, unconsciously pulling at the white plaid skirt that she wore which accompanied a pink button-up shirt with a black choker, swallowing the blush with a scowl. "Manual labor's a bitch."

The Mudslide Crush front-man chuckled. "Yeah, so I've heard."

With his attention towards the cards, the guy across the counter from her pressed his hand over hers. He smirked when her eyes widened as she looked up at him. Stella forgot he was there.

"You know, that offer still stands…Yamada's a nice name, got a last one?"

Mentally she snorted. It's just because I'm Asian isn't it? She thought. "That'll be eighty bucks, _sir_."

Still his hand remained planted a top hers, and the leering smile had yet to displace itself off his baby-face. Stella thought with an indignant roll of her eyes, the guy looked barely sixteen, hell, she'd bet her paycheck for the month that his balls hadn't even dropped yet.

"Sir, I'll ask this nicely. Take it off, before I break it off."

In normal conditions, Stella would completely skip niceties. However due to the fact that her paycheck would get her out of police holding cells (bail money is not easy to come by after all), she'd need whatever cash she could get.

But despite her polite request, the disgusting look of what he thought was seduction, had barely slipped.

"Don't try me _sir_, I won't hesitate to hurt you so badly you'll wish you were still a fetus," she warned in whatever remained of her calm.

"Wow a rough girl, I like…" his other hand trailed up her arm.

Stella's eye twitched.

Don't kill him. Don't kill him. Don't kill him.

"Oi Yamada," Ray interjected, dumping an armful of greeting cards onto the empty counter beside her. "What the hell are up with all these lame cards?"

"Did you clean your pants with Wndex? I can practically see myself in them," he read out, an annoyed look on his face. "I'd marry your cat just to get into the family? Oh god, you're joking. And this! You make my software turn to hardware? Some forty year old virgin probably wrote that one up!"

"Beech if you have such an issue take it up with the guy who made them."

"It's not worth putting up the effort," he commented with a snort, throwing the cards into a pile as he leaned against his elbows on the counter. The action caused the other guy to lean away as if Stella suddenly burned. He coughed.

"Yeah well, there's a bunch of other cards over there y'know, if you're interested…"

"Yamada, what exactly is the point of all these shitty Valentine's Day merchandise?" Ray asked, completely ignoring the other guy. "I mean seriously, who would waste their times on this?"

"Obvious me, and everyone else that's in here," Stella remarked dryly. "Yeah, but you're getting paid to be here aren't you?"

She shrugged. "Eh…it's a paycheck."

"So it's worth all this," Ray asked, holding up a handful of singing postcards, a mesh of Barney the Dinosaur's I-Love-You and Bruno Mars' Just the way you are.

"Yeah, I could do without the remix," Stella said, leaning against the counter again, but more facing Ray then the other guy. "And this?" He waved a cute looking puppy doll at her from the pile atop the counter. "Well…it looks…cute?"

"You can appreciate it until you start smelling it."

Handing it to her, she held it at barely arm's reach before the stench of roses and apples rushed through her sinuses. Normally it would've smelt divine. But the company definitely went for overkill.

"Cuteness versus Sense of smell, I'd prefer to be blind."

Ray snickered as she threw the offending puppy doll over her shoulder. "Next."

Twirling one of the many roses from the pile of the other guy's items atop the counter, he handed it to her. "How about this one?" Stella raised a brow, turning the plastic stem in between her fingers. "Hm…no thorns?"

"It's plastic Yamada."

"I can see Beech," she retorted, raising the petals to her nose to take a whiff. "Hmm…no smell either."

"See, now that's a gift," Ray stated looking satisfied. "Nope."

"Well what's wrong with that one?"

"It's a stupid gift, if you're going to get a girl a gift, at least make it a real one," she answered in a matter of fact tone. Ray shook his head at her. "So you agree with me about the cards and the smelly stuffed animals, and yet you don't want roses?"

"Not plastic ones."

"Okay," he rolled his eyes, "not plastic; how about balloons?"

"You want to match balloons with roses?" She asked with an arched brow. The match of thorns and balloons? What genius does that?

"Hell, you're difficult. No cards, no fluffy stuff, no roses and no balloons? What the hell do people give you on Valentine's Day?"

"Candy's good."

He raised a brow. "Sweet tooth?"

"Hey, normal people don't turn down food."

"Huh…"

"Ahem, Ms Yamada do you mind?" Stella jumped at the voice of her boss, a plump woman with a jolly face and an unstoppable smile, Mrs. West. "Don't you want to take care of this customer?"

By the time Stella turned to face the guy with the insane amount of Valentine's Day stuff, Ray was gone.

Blinking, the half-Asian managed a quick smile and nodded quickly.

"Sorry about that sir, that will be eighty dollars."

With the boss standing right behind her, the guy quickly coughed up his wallet and rushed out.

Three hours passed before closing time finally reached. Stella returned to the counter after she completed doing inventory and changing out of her pink shirt, where Mrs. West greeted her with her usual cheer. "Our Valentine's Day merchandise is selling like hot cakes in Texas! Good job Stella! I knew hiring you would be a good thing!"

The half-Asian gave an exhausted smile before grabbing her jacket as she went past the counter. "Glad I could help Mrs. West, see you tomorrow."

"Oh wait a second Stell," the jolly woman dug under the counter for a moment before she pulled out a box. "I don't know who this is from, but it's addressed for you."

"Me?"

Stella took the box from her and turned it over in her hands. The script on top read simply: Yamada.

Knowing the person right off, Stella cautiously removed the lid from its place to find a folded piece of paper on top of four large chocolate balls.

I'm sorry you're surrounded by a bunch of losers.

Don't mention this. Ever.

Just shut up and eat it.

Beech

**FINIS**

**Eish you're an ass DC xD When I'm writing your request and then you decide to annoy me. Geez, such a loser! Blerg. You know I love you, but seriously, bug me while I'm writing next time and I'll deck you so hard your great grandfather's dog is gonna feel it! **

**Ahem. **

**Anyway, for those that want a request story, you got to be specific. **

**My bud, DC gave me the themes of lame pick up lines and V-Day merchandise, she also thought of the title of this story. If you want a request you have to pick two or more themes for me to use, quotes work too, also, if you want to challenge me a little just give me a phrase.**

**Thanks for reading! **

Ella Lavender


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